Big Internet companies have been snapping up ad networks to boost ad revenue. Now Specific Media plans to join the M&A frenzyThe wave of dealmaking engulfing the online advertising sector isn't over yet. The most recent evidence came Nov. 1, with news that Francisco Partners, a private equity firm in Menlo Park, Calif., is investing $100 million in Specific Media, a company that specializes in placing and targeting online ads.
Specific Media plans to use the funding, which follows a $10 million venture capital infusion in June, 2006, to purchase smaller ad outfits capable of expanding the company's ad-delivering capabilities and the markets its ads reach. "The capital is going toward acquisitions," Specific Media CEO Tim Vanderhook says.
Specific Media's peer group has already seen its share of deals. The world's largest Internet companies, including Google (GOOG), Yahoo! (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT), and Time Warner's (TWX) AOL, have spent more than $10 billion in recent months (BusinessWeek.com, 5/18/07), snapping up online ad networks in hopes of boosting revenue from the placement of display ads, the graphic and multimedia messages that run in fixed places on Web pages.
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